"Very unhelpful and unsympathetic nurse"

I came here with my teenage son on a bank holiday weekend to have an abscess packed and dressed.

The nurses at the doctors had been doing so during the week but are shut at weekends.

My Dr surgery even called and got agreement that Purley Walk-in would do the dressings at weekends.

So, we booked in and waited patiently for 1 hour 30 minutes to see the nurse.

When we went in, the nurse point blank refused to do the packing/dressing.

She said that she "can't do all of Croydon's dressing changes".

I asked where was I supposed to take him and she basically said it's not her problem.

I said it's ridiculous for me to go to A&E for such a minor thing (district nurse won't come out to an able bodied 15 year old) but she wouldn't budge.

I then had to go to East Croydon walk in as advised by the receptionist.

Unfortunately, my son has another abscess and East Surrey had agreed with the Purley Walk in that they would do the dressings/packings on the weekends as there really is no where else practical.

I couldn't believe it when I had the same nurse last saturday and she tried to refuse again.

She said she would just do the dressing which I could have easily done at home myself and it's the packing that's important/more tricky part.

Luckily she finally agreed but said to us not to come back the next day (Sunday) but to leave it until Monday and go back to our gp (even though we have been told it needs doing daily).

I do not understand why she is being so obstructive and unhelpful, the procedure is so simple for her and took her 2 minutes.

We wasted more time arguing over her refusing to do it than it actually took.

I will say I have been impressed with the walk in on the other couple of occasions I have used the service but this was terrible.